This is my new dry erase board with a push-pin section. I keep a few inspirational Post-It’s right above my desk. My favorite is:

“Dig the well before you’re thirsty”

I like the Post-It note quotes because they draw more attention than the dry-erase writing.———————————

My House Of Rave goals were mostly met, although some of the stipulations changed. My main concern is finding a better customer service system. I currently use a basic webmail program for email, and an answering machine through Vonage. This system doesn’t allow me to organize emails or easily track problem resolutions. I’m THIS close to signing up for an exchange server. This will allow me to use an Outlook interface, but from any computer in the world.

I finally added some custom templates which allowed me to integrate the frame of the main page onto every page, including the shopping cart and checkout pages. This makes the whole site look much more congruent.

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I recently checked the webstats for Neville1.com, and found it gets 500+ unique page views a day. I was surprised to find that it wasn’t all traffic from NevBlog, but from the “Wallpapers” section under “Stuff”

When someone types in “The Godfather” into Google Image Search, one of the first results is a wallpaper on Neville1. Also, the image searches for “Kawasaki”, “Yamaha R1″ and “Henry Ford” also bring in several thousand visits per month.

I decided to test what would happen if I put an Adsense banner on the Wallpapers page about 4 days ago. So far it’s only made about $0.45 a day. Ehh.

——————————————–I spoke about the change in libraries too soon. After that post, the PCL library added some outside tables for the coffee shop inside. I’m curious how much money the university gets from the coffee shop.

The local coffee shops must hate this new cafe!

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After visiting the Aprilia dealership, I found a few leads for used Aprilia Scarabeo 50 scooters. This is the one I’m hoping to get a deal on:

A brand new one runs $2,700 + tax, title & insurance = $3,400

The time I spend waiting for and riding the bus is getting ridiculous, especially since I live so close to campus. Parking in Downtown is also crazy during the day, so a scooter would be especially helpful.

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One business venture under a non-disclosure agreement is really coming together now. The original creator of the business and I will hopefully have it up and running within the next month. Exciting stuff!

Actually there’s a good chance that the coffee shop is there rent free. I know of two separate businesses, an ISP and a coffee shop that receive free rent just for being there to pretty up the campus. Most educational institutions don’t have good business people running the place and they just give away the space for free.

Dave,The coffee shops are scattered on the fringes of campus. However, they offer a much different atmosphere than the library, which I think will still draw most people back.I doubt the coffee shop will have a HUGE impact at this particular location…but if they open a coffee shop at the UGL library (with no books), some of the shops will feel the impact.

Arbie,Two of my favorite quotes also!

Anon,Ha! If you said “Free rent” to any UT student, they would laugh at you. UT finds more and more ways every year to get more money from students, and making sure they spend their money on campus is one way. We do however get a lot of resources yet comparatively pay very little in tuition….so I can see why they need more money.

Wirthy,Not pink…white. The picture shows some red glare off the tool boxes they had around it. C’mon now…I’m not buying a PINK scooter!

hiI just wanted to know how did u opened the forum..i m a TA and teach around 90 studnets in a week would like my students to discuss and i can answer the questions there rather than individual emails..

i didnt get a chance to post some interesting trends that i’ve observed as well in the past 3-5 years..i would love to read comments …

1)monthly subscription services… all i see now are monthly bills.. it used to be just phone, electricity, and cable… now its cell phones, internet, radio, renting movies, downloading music, even bloody driving your car (zipcar.com)… hook em with a discount on a one time buy and reel em in with a yearly contract and an early termination fee…

any ideas on something that’s cheap or free… make it better and make it monthly…

2) self service.. okay so pumps have been around.. but have u noticed, ure doin online banking, checkin into flights, self-checkouts at the grocery store and using the atm more than a few years ago… no more high labor costs… do it yourself is in… as long as u have the technology, that’s reliable… and u’ll be cutting edge if u can remember individual client preferences…

any ideas on improving stuff.. i had an idea of a self operated motel… u swipe ure credit card in the door..and BAM…u have the room for the nite, ure credit card is ure key… no worries…leave in the morning?

3)everything has a higher end… take walmart, uve got target, take bilo (or star market or shaws, etc) and u’ve got whole foods, if there is a mass market then there is a richer mass market… and there’s always room in the market for two players…

any ideas of a company that’s only conquered the lower end of the disposable income market?

so there u have it… some widespread trends i’ve seen and hopefully i’ll hear some ideas from u guys…

I don’t mean to offend, but I wanted to tell you that its very distracting when trying to read what you write when you replace all your “you”s with “u”, and “your”s with “ur”. It distracts from the point of what you are writing and makes you sound immature. I realize that it is a common thing on the web, but I think you will find that if you use proper grammer, you will be taken more seriously.